


the cat’s meow

by mutterandmumble



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Banter, Cats, Established Relationship, Explicit Language, Fluff, M/M, Mild Spoilers, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, and the occasional pun, kuroo’s horrible sense of humor, regarding canon professions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:15:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25722706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mutterandmumble/pseuds/mutterandmumble
Summary: So there he is, and everything is horrible. Then something by the dumpster clatters and things get significantlymorehorrible, and at this point Kenma has transcended his earthly form and is considering opening up the tub of ice cream and just digging in with his hands because if he’s going to die here it may as well be right alongside a pint of subpar rocky road. He’s got his mind made up and the tub half out of the bag when the clattering gets even louder, and then there’s a yowl and a hiss and a tiny cat comes springing out from behind the dumpster, landing with its legs stuck straight out like sticks before tumbling forwards with the momentum and coming to a stop right in front of Kenma.Or: in which Kenma has no impulse control, and it rains cats and dogs
Relationships: Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurou
Comments: 6
Kudos: 95





	the cat’s meow

**Author's Note:**

> warning for the occasional mention of death in a humorous context
> 
> I have no excuse for this. I just really love cats and i've never written anything particularly serious for kuroken but i guess this isn’t really serious either. More just an excuse to make shitty jokes and give the two of them a cat because it's what they deserve
> 
> Anyways, hope you enjoy!!

Kenma’s first mistake was letting Kuroo get into his head.

He’d just finished streaming and was sitting in his chair, legs kicked up so that his knees were pressed close to his chest and hair tied back into a bun that was stuck through with a pencil because he’d lost his last hair tie three days ago. He was looking at his dead-eyed reflection in the screen of his computer, at the rumpled hoodie thrown on over one of Kuroo’s shirts and the coffee stain that he’d somehow gotten up on his shoulder (and how the  _ fuck  _ did he manage that) and somewhere in the midst of his haze he realized that he hadn’t left the house in upwards of a week. Kuroo’s voice floated through his head then- Kuroo, who was at work right then but would be home that evening- the one that told him that he should maybe go for a walk or something, or like down to the grocery store or even just to the gas station, and as he tried to remember the last time he went outside he’d decided that maybe,  _ maybe  _ just this once Kuroo was right. 

So he’d hauled himself up and out the door, not bothering to change and figuring that he’d just run down to the store and pick up some ingredients for dinner. The sky was cloudy when he left but the air was light and the little, persistently worried Kenma that lives in the back of his head and makes constant promises of disaster was too sleep-deprived to make a fuss, so Kenma had left the house without checking the weather or taking any of his other various precautions- affectionately referred to as his doomsday prep by Kuroo, which is more fitting than he’d like to admit- and that was that. Everything went off without a hitch; it wasn’t too crowded, it wasn’t too hot, he didn’t stutter at the cashier, and he only ended up with two bags to carry home which is good because had he ended up with anymore, he would have parked himself on the bench outside and refused to move until Kuroo came to help him.

So things were going well, and he was tired in that thorough way that keeps the world muffled, so he’d started the walk home in relative peace. And everything was  _ fine,  _ everything was  _ great  _ and he was feeling better by the minute, and then the clouds went dark and thunder rolled through the streets and the sky lit up a bright, blinding white before cracking in two and letting loose ten tons of  _ rain.  _

And now Kenma is outside all alone, with two plastic bags filled to the brim and the hood of his sweatshirt rucked haphazardly up over his head, and he’s thinking that going outside is really fucking stupid actually and  _ everything _ that Kuroo has ever told him  _ ever _ is a lie and when he makes it home he is going to sleep through the next fifty years. His speedwalk has ticked up into a steady jog, and his bags are knocking against his side over and over again as the rain pours down, down, down, and around the time that the thunder starts up again Kenma’s decided that he’s sick of it and ducks into the little side street next to the cafe that’s about a five minute walk from home. He’s close then, at least; close enough that he can wait here until the rain lets up a bit before braving the road again.

So he stands near the wall- and is very careful not to slump against it on instinct because it’s  _ disgusting _ \- and readjusts his bags and tries to see if he can’t regain any of his dignity when his hair is plastered to his forehead and his breath is ripping itself from his lungs and he hasn’t slept for two days straight. The rain is still coming down, though the edge of the cafe’s roof helps some- it isn’t as heavy over here anyways, even if he has to stand by the dumpster and he’s worried that an employee will come out the side door and catch him ten seconds from dropping dead with a quickly melting tub of ice cream and the ingredients for agedashi tofu slung over his arm.

Wouldn’t  _ that  _ be a way to go. He can see the headlines now-  _ Moderately popular streamer Kodzuken found dead in alleyway, cheap bastard didn’t even go for the good brand of ice cream _ . Kuroo would never let him live it down if hypothetical Kenma were still fucking  _ alive _ , but then again Kuroo’s not the sort to be deterred by basic logic so Kuroo would hold a bootleg seance with materials he got from the dollar store and then endlessly mock whatever cheap approximation of Kenma’s ghost that got him.

Anyways.

So there he is, and everything is horrible. Then something by the dumpster clatters and things get significantly  _ more  _ horrible, and at this point Kenma has transcended his earthly form and is considering opening up the tub of ice cream and just digging in with his hands because if he’s going to die here it may as well be right alongside a pint of subpar rocky road. He’s got his mind made up and the tub half out of the bag when the clattering gets even louder, and then there’s a yowl and a hiss and a tiny cat comes springing out from behind the dumpster, landing with its legs stuck straight out like sticks before tumbling forwards with the momentum and coming to a stop right in front of Kenma.

He looks at it. It looks back. The rain continues to fall, thunking at the sheets of cardboard left piled up around the dumpster. 

Kenma heaves out a sigh, lets the ice cream drop back into the bag, and then gives up entirely and slumps up against the wall. The brick is cool and slick and the little part of him that is still somewhat aware of his surroundings is burying its head in its hands and counting down from ten. The cat isn’t really a  _ cat,  _ Kenma decides as he ignores common sense in favor of studying it; it’s very small, small enough that he could pick it up with one hand, and its head is too big for its body and its body is too big for its legs, so it’s more of a kitten. A kitten that’s all alone out in the rain, cold and wet and shivering and- well, and Kenma’s brain has jumped to a solution but common sense is making one last valiant effort at keeping his life together, so Kenma’s a bit torn at the moment.

The kitten is still staring at him. It’s black-striped gray and it’s eyes are big and bright like the moon, overlarge in its tiny head and set above a little pink nose and whiskers that are heavy with rain. It’s thin enough to look sickly, and it is not wearing a collar.

“The cafe doesn’t allow pets,” Kenma says. The kitten starts, but it doesn’t move away or stop its staring. “Neither does anywhere else on this street, and there aren’t any houses around here. You’re probably a stray. You look like a stray.”

Somewhere in the back of his head, impulse has begun waging a war against common sense. Impulse has sleep-deprivation, a reduced capacity for decision making, compassion, and a deep, enduring love of cats on its side. Common sense has a voice that sounds like his old coach’s and not much else, and if Kenma is being honest with himself he’s already got his mind made up and is just waiting for everything else to realize it anyways. 

“No,” he says just in case, looking at the kitten very sternly in a last ditch effort at maintaining pretense. It looks back at him with big, wide eyes the same color as the sun and stumbles forwards on its shaky legs. “This is a cliché. I’m not going to be a cliché.”

The kitten takes a few trembling steps towards him and then bats at the edge of his sneaker, fur stuck up in tufts along its back. It really is small, even for a kitten, and clumsy at that; it looks too big for its body and too little for much else, a wisp of black-streaked gray against the dirty red brick of the walls. 

“You’re very small,” Kenma tells it, “And most of my friends are very big. They’d never leave you alone. And Kuroo would want to name you but he has a really shitty sense of humor so you’d be stuck with something stupid. Probably a pun or a reference or something or maybe like, George if you’re lucky. It’d be really embarrassing for everyone. You don’t want that, right?”

The kitten meows at him, a tiny noise that Kenma can hardly hear over the rain, and he huffs out through his nose. The rain pitter-patters onto his shoulders as he picks a stray thread from his sweatshirt and watches as the fabric goes dark, stained in little circle-splotches by the water. It’s getting cold out; his skin is damp and his shirt is sticking to the knobs of his spine and there’s an incessant, pervading tremor in his fingers. The veins in his wrist are poking up, his jeans are soaked through, and he’s got to make a decision right now because if he doesn’t he’s going to melt into the ground right here and now, and a person who’s a puddle isn’t exactly the sort of person Kenma’s looking to be at the moment. Once university starts up again then  _ maybe,  _ or if he forgot something from the store and has to go back out later _ ,  _ but for now- 

“Kuroo is going to give me so much  _ shit  _ for this,” he tells the kitten, who looks at him and doesn’t say a word, just mewls plaintively and bumps its head into his leg. Kenma sighs and shifts his bags up into the crook of his elbow, adjusts his hood with one hand and bends down far enough that he can hold his hand out to the kitten comfortably. It sniffs at him, hesitant, but soon enough it comes close and he’s able to pick it up and- with some maneuvering that’s equal parts creative and painful- gets it bundled into his sweatshirt. 

Then he takes a deep breath in, looks up to the sky and swears three times over before ducking his head down and running back out onto the sidewalk. Kenma _hates_ running. Everything that he's ever done ever was a mistake. It’s cold out, and balancing both the kitten and the bags when the kitten is squirming against his stomach and the bags are slipping further down his forearm by the second is borderline impossible. It’s a miracle that he makes it home without falling, an even greater one that he doesn’t drop anything; but make it home he does, and he continues his full-tilt barrel all the way up the stairs and to the door. It takes some effort to get it unlocked, and the some more to get it open, but Kenma manages and soon enough he’s bursting through the door, coughing and heaving and swearing because he can see bits of Kuroo’s hair sticking up over the back of the couch, and that means that Kuroo saw _all_ of that. 

That’s confirmed when Kuroo twists to look at him, shit-eating grin already set in place and looking for all the world like the cat that ate the canary. 

“Is it raining out?” he asks lightly, and then launches into a laughing fit that is twice as long and ten times as obnoxious as his usual laughing fits because he’s laughing at his  _ own  _ joke. He stands up from the couch and makes his way over to the door, dressed in an old shirt of his and a horrible pair of mustard yellow sweatpants, and then because Kuroo is Kuroo and Kuroo can’t leave anything alone to save his life, he starts fussing over Kenma’s hair.

“Funny,” Kenma gasps through his uneven breathing, doing his best to bat Kuroo away when both of his hands are full. “You’re funny. I got stuff for dinner. And a cat.”

Kuroo’s hands still. He blinks. “What?”

“I got stuff for dinner,” Kenma repeats, slower, as he finally manages to break away from Kuroo. He takes the bags from his arm and dumps them into Kuroo’s instead. “And a cat.”

He pulls the kitten out from beneath his sweatshirt and holds it, slightly unsure where to go from here until it starts pawing at his arm and he sets it down. It sits, tail curled around its haunches and head cocked to the side as it stares Kuroo down. He looks back, face carefully controlled and hands lax around the handles of the bag, blinking fast and face set in a taken aback, barely-there smile. Kenma can practically see the gears turning in his head- the confusion giving way to thought, and then thought to a probable explanation, and then the probable explanation to the unrestrained glee of finding something new to tease Kenma about. 

“The cat’s out of the bag, then,” Kuroo drawls, and Kenma immediately fixes him with the least impressed glare that he’s got.

“I’m breaking up with you,” he says.

“You can’t,” Kuroo tells him. “I’m non-returnable.”

“I’ll find a way.” Kenma crouches down and reaches towards the kitten. It pushes its head into his palm and he can’t help but smile a bit as he runs a thumb over the wet clumps of fur behind its ear. “I found him outside the cafe. The one down the street.”

“While you were hiding from the rain?” Kuroo asks, and then sputters when Kenma flicks water his way without once looking up. The kitten has started to purr, the sound low and soft over the hum of the heater and the drumming of the rain outside, and Kenma feels better already even if only on principle. 

“We’re gonna need to take him to the vet,” Kenma continues, ignoring Kuroo. He doesn’t comment on it, only laughs a little and then crouches down, reaching out his own hand. The kitten sniffs it, toddles forwards and then nips at Kuroo’s wrist as he makes that grossly affectionate face he makes sometimes, the one that makes Kenma’s stomach twist into knots. “So we can see if he has a chip, or if he’s sick or anything. And once the rain stops we have to get food and stuff. Just enough to last us until we can actually _get_ him to the vet.”

“I can’t believe the one time you actually leave the house you come back with a fucking  _ cat _ ,” Kuroo says, but he’s currently running his hand along the kitten’s back, and between that and his voice- which has already gone soft and fond and sweet- any edge that the words may have had has been dulled down to nothing. Kuroo likes cats, and  _ Kenma  _ likes cats so frankly it’s a miracle that neither one of them has picked up a stray like this before, especially since they’ve both always wanted pets. It was really only a matter of time. 

“Like you wouldn’t have done the same thing,” he says, because he’s not going to  _ think  _ something that would justify his actions and not  _ say  _ it. 

“Well of course I would’ve,” Kuroo snorts, standing and brushing off his sweatpants (though  _ why _ Kenma doesn’t know; those sweatpants are a lost cause). “And we’re keepin’ him if we can, right? If they don’t find an owner or anything like that?”

“Duh,” Kenma says, attention waning because the kitten has started pawing at his arm and that is much more interesting than a conversation that ended in all but name way back when Kenma had first ducked into an alleyway to avoid the rain. 

“So then we’re going to need a name,” Kuroo continues. Kenma’s head snaps back up and he glares in a fruitless effort to get Kuroo to  _ shut up  _ before he says something stupid. “And since you were the one that brought a cat home without telling me,  _ I  _ should get to name him-“

“No.” 

“And I don’t have anything definite yet but how do you feel about like, Meowzart? It’s got a cool sort of distinguished vibe I think, and-“

“Shut up, shut up, shut  _ up _ -”

Kuroo cackles as Kenma swats at his shin, his head thrown back and his arms crossed over his stomach; the whole nine yards, and Kenma sort of hates him for it and sort of loves him for it and sort of wants to go collapse facedown on his bed and not wake up until he can feel his limbs again. Is he dead, is he alive, god only knows. Kenma’s just tired, and his wet clothes are starting to get  _ very  _ uncomfortable, and as Kuroo seems content to play with the kitten (who will  _ not  _ be named something ridiculous) and his groceries are relatively safe (his poor, poor ice cream) he heaves himself back up to his feet and stretches his arms high above his head, trying to work out the crick in his neck he got from keeping his head ducked down. 

“I’m going to go get changed,” he says. “Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone.”

“Like impulsively adopt a cat? Because that would be a  _ catastrophe _ , yeah?”

“NO,” Kenma says, and then he turns on his heel and walks down the hall as Kuroo laughs and laughs and laughs behind him. 

And he’s still about to keel over- and his sweatshirt is beginning to chafe against the back of his neck, this is his  _ favorite  _ sweatshirt, is nothing sacred- and he’s still going to need three straight days to recover from this, but worse things have happened with less good to balance them out, and he guesses that they have a cat now so that’s something. Shouyou’s going to want pictures. He’s going to have to take pictures. 

But life’s nothing without it’s priorities, so the pictures will have to wait. First, he’s gotta get changed; then he has to stop Kuroo from telling Bokuto that they got a cat, and more specifically he has to stop Kuroo from telling Bokuto that that cat has a stupid name (because Bokuto spreads news like wildfire, and that would be game over- no chance of changing it, and Kenma didn’t carry a kitten home in pouring rain for it to be named  _ Angelina Purrlie  _ or some shit like that) and then he’s going to break open that carton of ice cream and eat as much as he wants, consequences be damned. He’s earned it, he thinks as he hears something crash from the living room, followed by a high-pitched yelp and the skitter of the kitten’s claws against the kitchen floor. He’s really, really earned it.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Please consider leaving a comment if you enjoyed!! I love hearing from you guys!!


End file.
